


The Very Hungry Sammypillar

by RonnieMinor



Series: Sabriel Week 2012 [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Transformation, Crack, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:05:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RonnieMinor/pseuds/RonnieMinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets hits by a spell which has some interesting consequences. Gabriel decides to lend a hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Very Hungry Sammypillar

**Author's Note:**

> Written during Sabriel Week for this prompt on Tumblr: I’ve seen some people asking for prompts for Sabriel Week. I have one really weird prompt. No, really weird. So. Could someone write a fic (Sabriel fic!), where Sam is a caterpillar? Crack or angst or romance or humour or everything else. But Sam is a caterpillar! Please?..
> 
> I took it and I ran with it. Whoops.

Sam runs round the corner in hot pursuit of one of the witches they’ve been tracking for the past week and… straight into a coven of six. Who are chanting. 

His last thought is something along the lines of, _well fuck_.

And then his world somehow shrinks and expands at the same time. He is small and squishy and very, _very_ hungry. The world is all grey and he wonders where he can find some leaves or maybe even a flower.

Then something is _squeezing_ him round his middle and the floor is shooting away from him. He curls and uncurls and desperately tries to escape the the pincers holding him ( _fingers_ , his human brain whispers) but he can’t get free.

Suddenly, there’s a bright white light and he’s free of the pincers. He curls into a coil on the warm, fleshy place he’s ended up. A noise booms above him and the parts of him that aren’t small and hungry try to make sense of it.

‘Now you shouldn’t play with toys that don’t belong to you’, is what the noise seems to say. _‘The voice’, not ‘the noise’_ , that other part of him says. Anyway, the _voice_ seems to be coming from the thing he’s coiled up on, so he sits tight. There’s more noises and voices and then a _face_ comes level to him, speaking words that sound like the rustling of leaves and soft grasses. He uncoils and turns in the direction his humanity tells him is the right way. There are huge golden eyes that he remembers vaguely and they’re staring at him.

‘Well this is a pickle kiddo’, the voice says. There’s a gust of wind that apparently counts as a sigh and the giant fleshy human thing snaps its fingers - or so the other part of him says. Then he’s in something cool and slippery that his feet (which aren’t really feet but that other bit calls them that) don’t much like. But there are _leaves_ , so it doesn’t matter. In fact, nothing else matters. He inches over to them and starts to eat, mandibles working happily.

He doesn’t notice that he’s not even with the fleshy human thing anymore.

Dean comes hurtling to where he’d heard the sounds of fighting and finds bodies and Gabriel.

‘What happened? Where’s Sam?’ he demands.

Gabriel shrugs. ‘I’m sorry Dean-o, I couldn’t find him anywhere. Looks like I got here a little too late. Anyway, I’ve got places to be, ladies to see. Ask my baby bro - you know how infatuated he is with you.’ And then he disappears, smirking, leaving one very pissed off Dean Winchester behind.

Back in one of his favourite houses, looking out over a valley somewhere green and peaceful in Europe, he goes over to jar containing the caterpillar formerly known as Sam Winchester. 

‘Now what am I going to do with you?’ he muses to himself. ‘That spell is some serious mojo Sammy. If I mess with it, you might come back green and I doubt you’d be very grateful. You usually aren’t.’ He sighs. ‘Well, I guess we’ll just sit around and wait for you to blossom into a bootiful butterfwy.’

Shaking his head, he snaps up a drink. And an extra large lollipop.

Later though, when Sam is wandering up and down the twig in the jam jar (now sans leaves) looking sad, Gabriel feels a tug of pity in his cold, black heart. Which isn’t actually cold or black. And is going all gooey over a caterpillar.

Cursing himself, he snaps up a large glass tank, then fills it with foliage and covers the bottom with leaf mold because apparently he cares about whether Sammy the Squishy hurts his weird little leg things. Oh and now he’s given the caterpillar a nickname. 

Giving in to the fact that he’s allowing himself to show his affections for a man who is currently an insect, he goes off muttering to himself about how he’ll be watching bug porn next. 

Thankfully, bug porn remains unknown. Instead, he spends most of the night watching Sammy devouring leaves and pointedly ignores the feeling of pride when most of what he’d put in the tank is gone by morning.

The next day, he gets a summons from Castiel - and it’s persistent enough that he actually decides to answer it. He summons a bit of rainforest for Sammy, still dripping with condensation, then heads out to deal with Cas and the grumpy Winchester.

When he returns that evening he’s had quite enough of other people. Angrily he snaps up a couple of puddings and some porn, which he turns off a couple of minutes later. He has a bottle of champagne instead, muttering fiercely to himself through mouthfuls of cream and candied fruits. It’s typical that not only did Castiel _not_ let him mess with Dean’s head and forced him to explain what had happened to Sam, but he’s also pretty sure that his little brother has some thoughts of his own as to why the former Messenger of the Lord randomly turned up to help two humans he’s always claimed to hate. Castiel’s gaze was sympathetic, which did nothing to improve Gabriel’s temper.

‘At least my problems revolve around Sammy being a _bug_ and not just being completely oblivious like his Neanderthal brother’, he grumbles. In reality though, he knows his situation is just as hopeless as Castiel’s - at least Dean actually _likes_ his angel.

After a while (and several bottles of champagne) Gabriel feels a little more relaxed. He managed to convince Dean that Sam is safest with him while the curse runs its course and swore (‘Scout’s honour’) that he’d return Sam when he’s back to normal. It is only a matter of time from now on - the spell isn’t permanent, just powerful. Gabriel is certain the witches meant to kill or sacrifice Sam when he was in a weaker form and this particular invocation bound him into a vulnerable state. Its downside is that once Sam has completed the life cycle of a butterfly, he’ll return to his human form. The witches wouldn’t have worried though - he’d have been dead long before then if they’d had their way.

‘Maybe I’ll get some thanks this time - how does that sound kiddo?’ Sam has just woken up and Gabriel watches him for long minutes as the dusk darkens into night. In fact, he spends most of the night watching him. He finds the caterpillar’s small, constant motions soothing. As an archangel who has existed since before the Earth had any form, minutes pass like something less than milliseconds and Sam’s progress is peaceful.

Finally, when the caterpillar begins to slow and light creeps across the sky, Gabriel stops watching and heads to his room to doze for a few hours. When he gets up, he does a little research on caterpillars. He tries to reassure himself that nobody can see what he’s doing, so there’s no need to be embarrassed. It doesn’t work, but at least Sammy is asleep and doesn’t see any of it.

Gabriel doesn’t actually _need_ to sleep, so after that, most nights find him watching Sam eating his way through whatever delicacy Gabriel has conjured up for him. He sheds his skin four times over the next couple of weeks - and Gabriel nearly has a heart attack the first time it happens. He also grows like a weed, much like the angel imagines he did in real life. He spends that particular day hopping back in time to watch the young Sam Winchester turning into the Giant Beanstalk over that one long summer. 

He chats to his little insect friend while the caterpillar crawls along twigs and chews through leaves. Gabriel’s almost certain that Sam doesn’t understand a word that he’s saying, but that doesn’t matter. As time passes, he even starts to explain just why the sasquatch of a Winchester boy has managed to get under his skin. Every now and again the caterpillar will rear up on its hind quarters as if it’s looking at him. He likes that.

Then, one night Sammy the Squishy (a nickname that has lingered far longer than it should have), doesn’t slow down as the light starts to cut the darkness. Instead, he crawls up to the fork in a twig and fixes himself there. He goes very still and Gabriel suddenly realises that this is the beginning of the transformation. He looks at the caterpillar, knowing that what he’s seeing is now just the old skin; the chrysalis. 

‘See you on the other side Sammy’, he murmurs and heads to bed.

The next week passes uneventfully but as eight days pass, then nine, Gabriel begins to get twitchy. He stops sleeping and spends most of his time aimlessly wandering through the living room and kitchen, his eyes always drawn to the chrysalis hanging from the twig, unmoving and brown. It twitches occasionally, which gets his hopes up. Nothing happens though.

He almost misses the metamorphosis after finally going for a nap. Some sixth sense wakes him up after an hour and he is grumbling to himself on the way to the kitchen when he notices the way the chrysalis is shaking. He stops and watches in awe as the hard shell cracks and splits and wriggles. Time seems to slow as something furry begins to appear from the hole in the shell. It struggles and it’s almost free when he realises it’s going to fall to the ground. Without thinking, Gabriel slips his hand under the chrysalis and catches the butterfly formerly known as Sammy the Squishy, formerly known as Sam Winchester.

‘Hello there’, he says as he lifts his precious burden out of the tank and walks to the window, Sam’s legs tickling his palm as the butterfly tries to right itself. ‘You’re not what I expected. I blame the witches.’ Sam has come out of the cocoon as a totally different type of butterfly to the larvae that went in. Gabriel doesn’t mind though as he holds the butterfly in the sun, watching the crumpled wings straighten and dry over the next couple of hours. 

Then, he holds his breath as the butterfly ( _Sam_ ) walks delicately along his palm and across his index finger. He curls his other fingers in instinctively and holds Sam closer to the sun. Beautiful wings flap a couple of times and then Sam is fluttering around the room, settling here and there for a few seconds before flying on. He returns to Gabriel though, settling on his shoulder.

There he stays while the archangel gets rid of the tank, does a little research into _Aglais io_ , the European Peacock butterfly. In fact, he only leaves when Gabriel conjures up a swathe of tasty butterfly treats including buddleia, dandelions and clover. The various flowers fill the room with scent and make Gabriel think of long summers spent in the English countryside back in the 1500s. The whole thing is remarkably peaceful.

It remains that way for the next two weeks, the two of them in the house full of flowers. Gabriel gets fresh flowers daily and fills the rooms with them so that Sam can follow him about and still eat. Because Sam does follow him, almost everywhere. It’s a little odd, to be sure, but Gabriel doesn’t mind. After all, Sam is a very ‘bootiful butterfwy’ now.

‘You’re almost as pretty to look at as you are in real life’, he solemnly tells the butterfly one day. It almost seems to give him one of the patented Winchester bitch faces and he laughs, long and loud.

On the fourteenth night, Gabriel goes to sleep dreaming of meadows and simpler times where he and Sam could ride through fields all day without a care in the world. He’s allowed to be as tough as marshmallow within the privacy of his own head.

He wakes up warmer than he expected, freezing when he shifts backwards and comes into contact with smooth skin and hard muscles.

‘Morning sleepyhead’, a familiar voice says.

‘Sam?’ is all he manages to squeak out. A huge hand covers his hip and rolls him over.

‘Hey.’ Sam smiles. Gabriel stares at him. He’s still trying to process why Sam Winchester is in his bed. Seemingly naked. Not trying to kill him. He also is apparently an angelic mind-reader now, because he starts to explain things. ‘I settled here last night, on the pillow. I woke up… like this… about an hour ago.’ He frowns briefly, then continues.

‘Look, I always thought you were kind of cool. A dick, but cool. After I got to know Cas, I figured maybe you weren’t so bad, because Cas isn’t, underneath it all. And then you saved me from becoming part of whatever crappy witch spell I was headed for. And you were nice. You gave me leaves. That really matters when you’re a caterpillar, y’know? You talked to me - _about me_ , even. And it turns out I was right - you’re actually ok. Better than ok actually. Pretty great.’ He pauses, looking intently at the smaller man. 

‘You carried me to the sun. You brought me food. You took care of me. _Protected_ me. Butterfly or not, those things matter. You didn’t have to do any of it and you did. For me.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s hard not to fall for someone when they do that, even if most of your brain is thinking about how tasty the nectar in that flower is.’

Gabriel struggles to process everything, speechless for once. Finally, he manages: ‘You’ve been watching me sleep for an hour? Pervert.’

Sam laughs and laughs and laughs at that. Then he leans over and kisses Gabriel, long and slow and sweet. 

When they (or rather, Sam) pause to breathe, Gabriel chuckles. ‘I think being turned into a caterpillar was good for you.’

Sam fixes him with a look. ‘I spent a _month_ eating leaves. You called me ‘Sammy the Squishy’ and poked me to watch be curl up.’

Gabriel doesn’t deny it. Instead, he climbs into Sam’s lap, rocking their hips together and stealing the tall man’s mouth for a kiss.

‘Seems like it turned out alright to me’, he murmurs as he trails his lips down Sam’s neck before sucking slowly on the pulse point. Sam is too busy gasping to reply.


End file.
